This month's blog is from "Dale." He wrote this letter to his late wife, as the person she was as a girl. He shared it for the sake of other survivors, of all ages and genders, who have trouble believing they are loved or worthy of love.
Dear Younger Ann,
This is going to be hard for you to believe but PLEASE keep reading! I know your secret, you are safe!
My name is Dale and I am your future husband.... So now I have this idea about writing a letter to you, my deceased wife, to say what I would love to be able to say to child sexual abuse and rape survivors.
There is a lot of time and space between us right now but I want you to know that I’m alive and I will love you like few women have ever been loved! We only had 22 years together and it went by so fast. I know it's a lot to take in... We will meet and fall in love and it's going to be epic!
I can only imagine how unsettling this is going to sound to you, knowing how you felt about things in the time and place that you are reading this, so brace yourself, I know your secret because you told me when we were dating and then, over the years, you told me everything. My love and esteem for you didn't diminish.... it grew….. I wish we had known then what I know now, we could have gotten to the healing part so much quicker than we did…. That’s what this letter is for.
What happened to you is what happened but it's not who you are!
The shame belongs to them baby, not you.
It’s not your fault.
I know it hurts and I know that you keep it hidden. I know you can't tell anyone right now but let the knowledge that someday you will be able to tell your story, be the start of your healing.
I have watched your face while you told close friends what happened to you, your voice before, during and after and I watched their responses to you.... baby it was beautiful! You are so much stronger than you know!
When you told me, we were dating. You said that you had to tell me a secret that you had only ever told two people. You told me that you loved me, but I may not want you. You said that you were trusting me and that if I told anyone, we were through. You made me promise and then you gave me the condensed version of what happened. I remember your eyes when you told me. You were so afraid.
We were married and I don’t regret it. We had a good marriage. People envied us but they didn’t know the whole story. The things that those boys did to you had left wounds and our secret left wounds on the inside. I just wanted to feel close to you and accepted by you, you just wanted to feel loved and pure,
it's okay baby! We just talked and talked until you fell asleep in my arms.... I had never felt closer to you. From that moment things began to change, and they were beautiful changes. You began having more self-confidence and you stopped being so quick to apologize for every little thing... your countenance was changing and our intimacy was growing and growing...
Five years before you died, you were 35 and that's when you told your mom. It was after your first bout with terminal cancer, you told your mom that you intended to just tell everybody and, well, it was healing for you to tell your mom and I'm sure that had you lived longer, you would have told your whole story.
You held onto life so hard.... you lingered for months, and it took so much pain medication to keep you comfortable... I feel like I failed you by not urging you harder to tell the world your story... I feel like you had that unfinished business that you needed to do and that kept you from having the peace to go on to the next world.
Maybe someone will read my letter to you and take that next step for you. I love you baby, thank you for being a good wife and a good friend...
To you the reader, thanks for reading my letter. Please know that you are loved more than you know.
Dale
Read Dale's companion letter here: To the Partners (of child sexual abuse survivors)